By Mustapha Jarjou
Muhammed Jobe, a Gambian Migrant who hailed from Brikama and currently living in Marrakech, Morocco with intention of crossing to Europe through the Mediterranean Sea has enunciated that Morocco is not a country with any slight job opportunities for any migrants who had been forced out of his or her home country by economic hardship, which The Gambia is among.
Muhammed Jobe in an exclusive interview with The Voice Newspaper on Wednesday, 16th November 2022 said, in Morocco, “the Moroccans are working and everything is done by citizens when it comes to constructions, gardening,and agriculture among others. All these kinds of jobs are the hope of migrants to engage themselves in terms of job opportunities. Truly Morocco is a civilized country but citizens do everything themselves.”
He said the intention of the migrants is not to live long in Morocco, but to pay for a boat to get them to Europe through the Mediterranean sea is expensive. “If you are not working it will be a serious challenge, this is a problem that we are faced with,” he stressed.
Muhammed Jobe said, “the migrants which include Gambians who are at the coastal areas waiting for the boat to go to Europe are harassed by the Moroccan police force in the western Sahara in a city called ‘Laayoune.’ The police sometimes forcefully break into the migrants’ houses which include some of my friends who are facing this difficulty. As a concerned Gambian with the bad treatment meted out on migrants, we are facing difficulties in different ways,” he said.
Jobe added, sometimes a Gambian would have a job, whereby his employer would seize his or her documents discriminating against him or her as a migrant, considering the way they get into that country (Morocco).”
Meanwhile, he said, “Senegalese migrants do get a good job because they come through the flight. This is the Moroccan system, they own their country, and everything in that country is monitored.”
“We Gambian youth lose hope in the government of the Gambia that’s forcing us to take this dangerous journey to Europe. There is no place like home and everyone should be proud of his or her home, still, we are proud of our home but we don’t want to stay because of the situations in the country (Gambia).”